"Love is Like a Cough" and other Swahili Valentines

Love is like a cough, it cannot be hidden

Kanga, the wrapped garments worn mostly by women in East Africa, are more than colorful cloths. In addition to a printed pattern engineered for the standard 1-meter by 1.5-meter length of cotton, each kanga carries an inscription, often in the form of a riddle or proverb. The messages evolved as a means for women to communicate what might at one time, have been considered unacceptable to speak out loud. Subjects cover everything from condolences to gratitude, to wishes of good luck and admonishments for gossiping. Kangas are often given as gifts. They have many uses and it is not uncommon for a woman to have a collection of them, so as to don the appropriate message for every occasion.

Many of the images here are from the Erie Art Museum, which mounted a show about Kanga in 2009. Others are from an exhibition at Arkansas State University.

So for this Valentine’s Day, during Fashion Week, within Black History Month post, here are some of the many Kanga messages around the topic of love.



When two are in love, their enemies can’t harm them


Let's be patient with one another and not fight over small things


He has promised to love me, I won’t let him down


There is somebody in the world to love for everybody


Give Us Peace So We Can Love Each Other (source)


What Are You Holding On For? He Doesn't Want You! Leave Him!
(Kanga version of “He’s just not that into you”) Photo by Amanda Lichtenstein


Let us love each other until people ask themselves (about our love)


Love Me So I Can Calm Down Already Photo by Amanda Lichtenstein


You can poison romance with too many words


It is no secret, you are my one and only

Better Magazine Covers … through Chemistry

The DuPont Company was already 111 years old when it started publishing a self promotional magazine in 1913. Hagley Museum and Library has a digital archive of all 640 issues published through 2003.

As you might expect, covers run the spectrum from cliché and repetitive to refreshing and unexpected, with some classic beauties in the mix.

While the production of the cover image was often discussed in an editor’s note, artistic attribution was rarely supplied. With very few exceptions, a designer or illustrator would simply (and quite mysteriously) be referred to as “the artist.”

November 1918


July-August 1922
“Answering the Clay Target’s Challenge”


April 1932
Photo of anhydrous ammonia cylinders.


February 1936
(seasonal image)


March 1937
(seasonal image)


September 1941
The Story of NYLON


June-July 1943
Nylon Goes Aloft


January-February 1947
This cover, about the auto industry, is by Domenico Mortellito (1906-1994). The Newark, NJ born artist worked for DuPont designing exhibits, most notably the 1965 World’s Fair Pavillion. Though a number of other illustrated covers over the next couple of years are stylistically very similar to this one, none are credited. Hmmm.


April 1947
Agriculture


February 1948
Metals


April 1948
Petroleum


April 1949
Pigments


February-March 1956
Cover is about the use of "Elvanol" polyvinyl alcohol
to improve the printing quality of paper.


April-May 1957
Cover by Vince Hoffman represents "paint-test farms."


July-August 1960
New Ideas for Industry's Product Lines through
the Designer and Du Pont


November-December 1961
Photographic record of colloidal fibrous boehmite alumina,
as seen through crossed light polarizing screens.


January-February 1962
A kaleidoscope of printing inks


May-June 1962
Cover about street-sweeping technology is by Allen Wexler.


July-August 1964
Fantasy and Fashion

September-October 1965
Lively Teen Fashions Leap to the Fore

January-February 1968
Stadiums Worth Cheering About


November-December 1973
"Chromalin" proofing (some of you might
even know what that is!)


July-August 1974
The Number One Look


July-August 1977
A Fashion Stir in Sleepwear


July-August 1987
The Livin' is Easy With "Blockade"
(flea and tick repellant)


July-August 1993
Painting By The Numbers


Number 4 2001
Artistry on Wheels

Alphabet City North

Nothing wakes me up in the morning like a good vestige of NYC history. This one was in plain sight and had me sit bolt upright on my way to an Upper East Side doctor’s appointment. That’s UPPER, not LOWER East Side (aka Loisaida aka Alphabet City aka The East Village). Why was “Ave. A” incised on a building up on 77th St. and York Avenue? Everyone knows the lettered avenues in Manhattan start below 14th St.

Well, that wasn’t always the case.

The Museum of the City of New York has an exhibition on now “The Greatest Grid,” marking the centennial of Manhattan’s famous street plan of 1811. There you can see the original hand-drawn map showing the twelve avenues that were designed to run the length of the island, starting at Houston Street.

East of 1st Avenue, however, were two outcroppings of land. The one between Houston and 14th St. was wide enough to accommodate four additional avenues. Those were given the letter names of A, B, C, and D. The land east of 1st Ave. from 59th St. to 91st St. was only wide enough for two avenues; Avenue A, which became York Avenue in 1928 and Avenue B, which is now East End Avenue.

P.S. 158 Bayard Taylor, between 77th and 78th Streets was built in the mid 1890s, which is why it bears the inscribed address. Read about the renaming of the avenue in honor of Sgt. Alvin York at Inside the Apple (hint, it had to do with money).


Speaking of renamed avenues, I’m happy to report that this lovely vestige of pre-1945 Manhattan still glows green on the wall of a subway exit at Rockefeller Center. I’m always relieved to see it when I’m there, because I can’t imagine it standing a chance of repair if it is ever damaged. The name change of “Sixth Avenue” to “Avenue of the Americas” was also a scheme for increasing real estate values. It just never seemed to take in the same way “York” did. Not as catchy, maybe?

Ephemeral New York reports that we've got the business owners of Sixth Avenue to thank for the name-change:

In the 1940s, they argued that the then-dingy avenue (the El had recently been dismantled above it) needed some sprucing up.

One way to do that would be to get Central and South American countries to build consulates and company HQs on the avenue. Real-estate bigwig Leonard Spear took credit for that idea.

In 1945, city council members were convinced, and Mayor La Guardia signed the name change into law. In the 1950s, signs representing different countries in the Americas went up all along the avenue.

"Wet Paint"

I love these first three “Wet Paint” signs, and the concept of "wetness" they convey. It’s a slightly different take than the Dutch Boy’s traditional warning of “don’t touch!”












These two have nothing to do with "wetness"
in any way, but they sure are great looking.

Polish Cat Stamps: A Lesson In Cuteness

It was hard to say exactly why I did not let out an “Ooooooo cute!” when I came upon these sheets of cat stamps from Poland.

At first I thought that by finding them in Yale’s Beineke collection, I assigned them more gravitas than I would your average cat stamp. But I wasn’t really convinced. Then I realized, that there must be some sort of “multiple-effect” operating, if there is such a thing. Array anything in a fine enough grid and you read the grid, not the image. And while grids have many wonderful qualities, let’s face it, they are not cute.

I happened to be looking through "Suspects, Smokers, Soldiers, and Salesladies," a wonderful collection of collages by Ivan Chermayeff and was glad to have this "theory" of multiples confirmed as a design axiom. Here’s what he says:

What about seeing several things repeated? Repeating is an act that forces one to view the act instead of the actor. If something ugly is repeated and remains ugly, it only means that it has not been repeated often enough. Repeating is like enlarging in this respect because if something ugly is big, then it only means that it was not made big enough. The Saint Louis arch is horrendous as an airport souvenir and quite magnificent as the gateway to the city… Supermarket shelves prove that the visual repetition of the worst possible packages can be a delight, which sometimes even surpasses the repetition of the best packages.

As the sheets were undated, I went elsewhere to find when they were issued. That’s when I came upon a listing for them on Etsy, arrayed as single stamps of a series. They date back to 1964.



Oooooooo, how cute!!!!!